


Harfleur

by persephone622



Series: Healer [5]
Category: Henry V - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Promise, Relationship Stuff, and I admit that I love seeing Hal suffer a bit, bit more plot, but there's still smut, just a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:43:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3206309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone622/pseuds/persephone622
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, the title pretty much says it all. The Battle of Harfleur. And Lizzie makes a decision that Hal is decidedly not happy with. But then, he makes one that doesn't make her all that happy either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harfleur

**Author's Note:**

> Next installment of Hal and Lizzie's story. I have the end of their story all planned out. Written out, actually. And only a few more one shots before we get there. Sigh. That thought makes me sad. I love these two.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! I'd love to hear from you!

“Here, Nathanial!” The ground trembled as the canon exploded again, mud and stone flying through the air. “Nathanial!”

“I am fine,” the youth protested as he scrambled back to his feet. He gave me a shaky smile before resuming his task, taking the arms of the man lying at his feet and pulling him to the place I had indicated. “Though he is not, my lady.”

“Lizzie, Nathanial,” I corrected, squatting down to assess the soldier. “Or Elizabeth if you must. And he is dead.” I stood and brushed off my dress, sighing. “What good is a healer if her patients have no life left for her to heal?”

The canon sounded again and I winced as triumphant cries mingled with pain-filled screams and the harsh clanging of metal against metal. “The gates have been breached, my la—L-Lizzie,” Nathanial exclaimed, blushing slightly as he stammered over my name.

I sighed. “So they have.” Grabbing my skirts with one hand and my basket with the other, I shook off the trepidation that pooled in my gut and made my way through the breach we had made in the battered city’s walls.

“My lady!” Nathanial scurried after me, slipping slightly in the mud. “The king would not approve. We have already disobeyed . . .”

“The _king_ is not here,” I interrupted, my anxiety fading into aggravation at both at the use of my unwanted title and the reminder of the order that I was blatantly disregarding. “And I am of much more use here than hidden away back at camp.” I frowned as we passed yet another still body, this one clad in unfamiliar armour. French. “Though it does not look it.”

“Lizzie!”

I spun in surprise at the familiar voice only to stumble backwards as a pair of hands shoved me out of the way of a Frenchman’s sword. “William!” He grunted in reply, swinging his sword up to block the other soldier’s wild swing.

With a few graceless swings and a sharp cry, the soldier went down and William turned to face me, panting.  “You should not be here, Lizzie,” he warned. “The king . . .”

“And what use am I elsewhere?” I interjected, my ire rising. “The dying lie here, not at camp.”

“Lizzie,” he began, only to cut himself off with a grunt. His eyes widened in pain and surprise before dropping to his chest. The sword slid back out of him with a wet sound and he fell to the ground in a heap.

“No!” I lurched forward and fell to my knees beside him. “William? William!” His brown eyes were dark, no spark of life in them at all, and his skin already cooling.

Angry, foreign words filled the air above my head and I froze, arching away from the sharp sword point prodding against my spine. “Please,” I whispered, my limited knowledge of French escaping me as fear raced through my veins. I twisted, slowly, taking in the blood-stained visage of the soldier standing over me. “I am . . . I am a healer. I can . . .”

The soldier stiffened as a dagger suddenly appeared at his throat, taking a breath before releasing it in a gurgle of blood as the blade slid across his skin. I froze as the dagger’s owner was revealed, meeting Hal’s dark, stormy, unreadable blue eyes. “You are meant to be in your tent, Elizabeth,” he growled through clenched teeth. “You have disobeyed your king.”

“You would have me wait?” I demanded, fear fading into aggravation. I pushed to my feet, holding his gaze. “Wait for you to bring me the already dead? Here, I can accomplish the task you brought me to do.” He clenched his jaw, eyes narrowing. “Will you allow me to do it?”

He watched me a moment longer before giving me a curt nod. “But you are to report to me the moment you finish, healer,” he snapped, spinning on his heel and stalking away.

His cold dismissal left me staring after him, swaying slightly in shock and jumping as hands grasped at my waist. “My la . . . Lizzie?” Nathanial’s brow furrowed in concern. “Are you well?”

“I am . . . I am well, Nathanial,” I lied, giving him a wan smile. I took a deep breath and forced the smile into something a bit more realistic. “Now. To work.” He nodded and started forward, eyes scanning the bodies littered at our feet for any sign of life. But I glanced at Hal’s retreating form and fought against the sudden sharp ache of pain that shot through me.

* * * * *

The girl chattered on in French, her excitement making me smile though I couldn’t understand her. She paused, wincing only a little as I dabbed at the slight cut on her cheek with vinegar, a result of getting stuck in the scramble after the city gate had been breached. “Ça va?” I breathed, stroking her arm soothingly. She nodded and I continued, brushing light amounts of salve onto her cheek and then her knees. “J’ai fini, mon cher.” I patted her leg and she beamed, hopping off of my makeshift surgery bed and scampering out into the street.

I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face, covering the yawn that escaped. The blue-gray sky outside the window belied the early hour and I stretched, my muscles aching from bending over various injuries for hours on end.

“How yet resolves the governor of the town?” Hal’s voice rang through the suddenly quite streets and I froze for a brief moment before following the sound.

I pushed through the crowds until my view was completely clear, Hal on his magnificent white stallion the only thing I could see. He was, every inch, a king.

“To our best mercy, give yourselves,” he continued, expression fierce and cold. “Or like to men proud of destruction, defy us to our worst.”

I could only stare, open-mouthed, as he continued, my Hal lost behind the façade of soldier and warrior king. My anger simmered with each phrase that passed his lips and I moved, wove my way through the throng, until I stood directly in his line of sight.

Hal paused, his threat against the women of defiant Harfleur lingering on the air as his eyes found mine. He swallowed hard. “What is it then, to me,” he said, voice thick and eyes seeming to shine, “if impious war, arrayed in flames like to the Prince of Fiends, do with his smirched complexion, all fell feats enlink’ed to waste and desolation?” He paused again, a beseeching in his eyes for a brief moment before they flickered back to the governor and hardened yet again. “What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, if your pure maidens fall into the hand of hot and forcing violation?”

I glared at him, anger turned to white-hot fury, but he continued, all focus on the governor. His face was cold and hard and not the face I had come to know, to . . . love. It was a soldier’s face, a conqueror’s face. And utterly foreign.

“What say you? Will you yield and this avoid?” he cried. “Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroy’d?”

The street was silent, waiting.

“Our expectation hath this day an end,” the governor finally replied, voice soft but decided.

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I had held as he yielded the town, seeing the same relief in the very subtle shift of Hal’s shoulders. His eyes found mine yet again, softening, but I could not lessen the ringing of his threats within my thoughts. Nor dampen the images that they invoked.

Hooves _clopped_ on the stone street and the people around me shifted, making room to allow Hal and his generals through. “My lady.” I glanced over at the nervous sergeant, sighing at the formality. “His majesty has requested your presence.”

I narrowed my eyes, but allowed him to lead me into the town, stopping in front of an elaborate dwelling that could only belong to the governor. The air was thick as I stepped inside, Hal watching me from his sprawled position across the room. “Yes, your majesty?” I curtsied and straightened, keeping my eyes pointed down.

“Lizzie . . .”

I snapped my gaze to his, furious. “You dismiss me with as little affection as you give the creatures beneath your feet and you deign to call me Lizzie?”

His eyes burned, darkening with annoyance. “Elizabeth, you defied an order,” he countered, his voice a low rumble. “One meant to keep you safe, which you _did not remain_.” He unfolded himself from his chair, moving slowly across the room. “The battlefield is full of death, no place for a healer.”

I gave a sharp, wry laugh. “I have seen a battlefield before, Hal,” I replied. “I know . . .”

“ _No_.” He cut me off, glaring down at me. “You have seen the aftermath of battle. The field during is an altogether different place. There is no mercy.”

“And you would know of _no mercy_ ,” I spat. We eyed each other, wary. “Would you have carried through with your threats? If he had not yielded, would you have done it?”

Hal hesitated. “Yes.”

I recoiled in disgust, stepping away from him. “I healed their daughters, _your majesty_. I helped their old and young. And you would be the monster that takes them away.”

“Because they would have done the same to you!” he roared. I stilled, eyes widening as he dropped his face into his hands. His shoulders drooped and I had a twinge of remembrance back to the day he had first become king. “He had a sword to your back, Lizzie. I did not think . . . I did not think I would reach you in time.” He lifted his head, eyes now bright with unshed tears.

“Hal . . .”

“I was . . .” He looked away and sighed, head rolling back on his neck. “I was . . . afraid.” His eyes found mine again and I gasped at the emotions that burned in their depths, having only a moment before he was across the room, claiming my lips in a hard, hungry kiss.

I lost myself to feel of his lips, as always, and wound my arms around his neck, pushing onto my toes to be closer. His hands were frantic, stroking my back, my sides, touching everywhere as though he feared he would never touch me again.

“Lizzie,” he choked, breaking the kiss. “I need . . .”

“What do you need, my Hal?” I breathed, my fingers teasing the hair at the nape of his neck.

He inhaled sharply, eyes darkening as they bored into mine. “ _You_ ,” he rasped. He kissed me again, unrestrained and needy as he picked me up and pushed me against the wall. With agitated motions, he pushed at my skirt, only to growl and rip it from hem to bodice, making me shiver as the room’s cool air washed over my bare flesh. I moaned as his fingers found my center, teasing and stroking me, sending bursts of pleasure pulsing through me. “More,” I pleaded, panting against his lips. I keened as he thrust his fingers inside once, hard and deep, before unlacing his breeches and filling me with a sharp push of his hips.

“Lizzie,” he sighed, burying his face against my shoulder. “ _My_ Lizzie.” He pulled back and thrust hard, making me grunt. “ _Mine_.”

He lifted his head and began moving in earnest, eyes locked firmly on mine. Their depths were swirling, teeming with emotions that took my breath away. Fear, relief, anger, and something else. Something that I dared not name, despite the hope that soared deep within me. “My Hal,” I replied, cupping his face and kissing him. Hal moaned, fingers digging into my thighs, leaving bruises, as he clutched at me.

He thrust deep, making me gasp as I felt my release explode over me, sudden and strong, and making Hal shudder as he followed moments later.

It felt like ages before he finally released me, gently setting me back on my feet only to scoop me up when my legs shook too much for me to walk. He carried me to the governor’s bed, lying me down carefully and settling down beside me. His hands never left me, gently stroking my stomach and arms and face as he watched me, silent. “Hal,” I began.

“I cannot lose you, my Lizzie,” he murmured, cutting me off with a gentle kiss. “I cannot.”

I swallowed hard, forcing down the argument that rose to my tongue at the pleading light in his eyes. Instead, I kissed him back, pulling him over me, and arched my back as his fingers found the knot to my stays. He trailed his lips over my jaw and down my throat, pressing a kiss over my heart and meeting my gaze. A familiar gesture from him, but the depth behind it struck me only then and I blinked against the burning of tears in my eyes. “My Hal.”


End file.
